Oceanside council candidates touch down on airport issue

OCEANSIDE -- While the development of the Oceanside Municipal
Airport has divided elected officials and residents for the last
year, all seven City Council candidates said last week that they
support improving the airfield and keeping it open.

The airport off Highway 76 in the western end of the San Luis
Rey River Valley has been one of the most contentious political
issues in Oceanside.

Nearby residents have complained about planes flying over their
homes, some city officials have suggested the property could be
better used for shops or offices, and airport supporters have
banded together to lobby vehemently against any politician or
proposal against the airfield.

The future of the airport has become a common question for the
candidates running for two open council seats up for election Nov.
7.

Vying for the seats are: incumbents Rocky Chavez and Shari
Mackin; former Planning Commissioner George Barrante; Jerry Kern, a
former president of the Oceanside Chamber of Commerce; Michael
Lucas, a retired state supervisor; George McNeil, a retired
educator; and C.C. Sanders, a retired police officer.

All of the candidates said they don't want to give control of
the property to the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, which
recently voted to ask the city about the possibility of taking over
the airfield.

Even so, the candidates had differing opinions about a recent
proposal to use a vacant northern portion of the airport to make
way for Costco.

The store would be part of a compromise allowing the city to
make more money off the north side while building up the south side
of the airport to make it a more viable operation.

The 50-acre airport, which opened in 1931, has an annual budget
of about $473,000 and about 65 private planes are kept at the
airfield, according to city officials.

There are about 18,000 landings and takeoffs at the Oceanside
airfield each year compared with about 210,000 at the busy
McClellan-Palomar Airport in Carlsbad, according to airport
statistics.

The Oceanside airport has 33 hangars and 47 tie-down spaces, and
a master plan for the facility calls for 162 hangars, 47 tie-downs
and space for offices and shops.

Building out the south side of the airport would include
replacing 22 old hangars with 41 new ones and would cost an
estimated $6 million in state loans.

Each year the airport is eligible for about $150,000 in federal
grants to improve it, but the city didn't apply for money this year
and turned down a grant in 2005.

The airport must remain open until at least 2024 as a condition
of a $175,000 federal grant it accepted in 2004, said Ian Gregor, a
spokesman with the Federal Aviation Administration.

The airport has cost the city about $486,000 in the last decade,
but the deficit could be made up by adding more hangars to the
facility, city officials have said.

Later this month the city plans to release an economic study of
the airport that will purportedly detail how much the city could
make if the property were used for something else and the cost of
building up different parts of the airport.